


curtain call (take zero)

by konshokoentaiko



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: (for some reason), M/M, Reverse Chronology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-19 00:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5949151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/konshokoentaiko/pseuds/konshokoentaiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hasn't dreamt since he became king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	curtain call (take zero)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NyomiOwahama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyomiOwahama/gifts).



> lesson learned: I absolutely cannot work to deadlines to save my life (or in this case, the fic)

**_5._ **

_ “Homra got here in time to help us with the Strains,” Fushimi says flatly, dropping off a pile of paperwork at Reishi’s bedside as soon as he enters the room. “Chased off most of them, and we’re all fine except you.” _

_ “That’s good to –” _

_ “You’re just going to let us fall apart, aren’t you? You haven’t made any plans at all.” _

_ Reishi sighs. _

_ Outside, the morning sunlight filters in through the infirmary window, temporarily freed from the seasonal barrier of rain and clouds. Rays trickle across the sheets and tell time like the sands of an hourglass; unbidden, the memory of a park bench within a haze of heat drifts into his mind. “I have,” he replies quietly, watching the shifting colors. _

_ “Really.” _

_ “Yes, Fushimi-kun.” Reishi leans back on the headboard. “I know what you want me to do, but at this point, I can only begin to build that influence after our month is over. But I assure you, Scepter 4 will not disband.” _

_ “But you didn't think about it until now,” Fushimi responds, sharp and cold. “If you'd even considered a thing, you'd have prevented –” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ He falls silent. Maybe he senses Reishi’s weariness; maybe all he ever wanted was a concession. Nonetheless, Reishi almost wishes Fushimi could keep talking, keep telling him what they both already know. _

_ “I suppose I thought… I had no right.” Seeing his subordinate’s eyes go wide, Reishi smiles wryly. “The source of Japan's prosperity is gone, and I am no longer a king. I had spent so long carrying out the Slate’s mission that I doubted who I was without it.” _

_ A purpose, a path, an ideal; they bled into one and rested upon his kingship, and he knows now, all too clearly, that his greatest success has also become his third failure – _

_ (though finally one he can fix, and that assurance alone is more than enough reason for him to go on) _

_ – but also that, before anything else, he will always be Scepter 4’s captain. _

_ He closes his eyes. “I forgot myself, and thus I hesitated. For that, I apologize.” _

* * *

In the dream, they stand near a newly-formed crater surrounded by destroyed trees, watching snow billow around them like fog. Suoh’s looking down this time, staring at the scar he carved into the ground, but his expression is as content as it ever was.

Ashinaka.

This is the last time they meet.

Reishi breathes in the crisp, cool air, an odd sort of tranquility flooding warmth and clarity through him for the first time in what feels like months. “Honestly, Suoh. Here?”

“Not like we could've avoided it much longer. And I figured you might think it was poetic.”

“In a terrible way, I suppose.”

“Mm.” Suoh looks up, and for a moment, Reishi imagines the shadow of a falling Sword of Damocles above him. There's nothing there now but a dull blue sky, the color of a winter’s afternoon on the cusp of spring. “I have to go soon.”

After everything, it’s almost a relief. Reishi says it then, because there's no reason not to. “… I loved you, you know.”

Suoh blinks, goes quiet; Reishi wants to laugh.

“I suppose it was stupid of me, but I did try to forget.”

“Ah, well,” Suoh begins, but Reishi cuts him off with an amused smile.

“I didn't really expect a response.”

“Didn't think you did.” He shrugs. “And I don't think it'd mean anything to you if I said I did too. But I stayed for you, so that probably counts for something.”

And he might have known it all along, but the admission, spoken aloud, jars him nonetheless. “You said that you didn't know what you were waiting for.”

“Yeah, that was true. But I still wanted to see you. And…” For the first time, Suoh hesitates, his eyes flicking awkwardly away. “I've never really done anything for you ‘cept lead you to a Damocles Down, so – I thought I should at least see it through. At least until you weren't…”

Ah. So that’s it.

_ How do you think I felt when I couldn’t save you?  _ Reishi thinks, and isn’t it ironic, that Suoh never lifted a finger to stop his own tragedy and still got what he wanted twice? Yet the anger he once felt is long gone, melted into tired resignation. His relationship  _ – _ or whatever it is  _ – _ with Suoh will always be terribly unfair, and now seems a fine time to accept it.

(Actually, it’s rather sweet that he stayed, whispers a shameless, unfiltered part of him that he immediately shuts down without a drop of mercy.)

“So you did take some responsibility after all, but only in death,” he sighs instead. “You honestly don’t deserve to be let off so easily. Perhaps witnessing my death would have taught you something.”

Suoh snorts. “Yeah, probably. Doesn’t mean it should’ve happened, though. And, well… we’ve never been the same, anyway,” he adds nonchalantly, as though it were really that simple. “You were the only one who did anything as king, and you lived and I didn’t. That’s it.” He gives Reishi a small, rueful grin. “But I am sorry.”

Reishi swallows. “Yeah.” He can’t bring himself to say anything more.

( _ But you don’t regret it,  _ he doesn’t say, and though he won’t ever be fine with that, he might understand it a little more.)

( _ But you were the only one who was the same as me,  _ he doesn’t say either, because it’s too much like a plea to stay.)

“You’ll be fine, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Despite everything, it sounds like the truth. Perhaps there really is nothing more to say after all.

“Thanks, Munakata.” Suoh smiles, radiant with certainty and absolution, and turns to leave. “See ya.”

He disappears into the forest. Unmoving, Reishi watches him go for the last time.

* * *

**_4._ **

_ Gripping the edge of the desk, Awashima stares in shock at the crowd of Strains storming their way toward the Scepter 4 headquarters. “These Strains… they've all come,” she whispers, horrified. “What are they doing here?” _

_ Reishi's eyes narrow. “How many?” he says lightly. “Thirty, forty? Well, it seems that most of the rest have gathered here. If we can restrain them all, our work may very well be finished.” He stands up, a cold calm in his gaze. “I'm going with you.” _

_ “Captain!” Awashima exclaims. “You have no powers left – you'll be –” _

_ “I can't leave my clan behind now, can I?” He smiles and sweeps out of the office, ignoring the protests that follow. _

_ They reach the courtyard as it teeters on the verge of pandemonium. The Scepter 4 troops have already drawn their swords, though Reishi can already see their blue energy wavering weakly; the Strains seem tense, but they haven’t backed down an inch. _

_ “Stop!” he commands, and the world freezes at the call of his voice. _

_ The clansmen and Strains alike stare at him, dumbfounded; he hasn’t appeared in a Strain conflict since he lost his powers. He continues, speaking into the silence. “I know why you’re here, and I take full responsibility for allowing rumors to fester. But the Slate is gone.” _

_ “We know the Slate’s gone,” one of the Strains shouts. ”But the kings were the ones to –” _

_ “The Slate is gone,” Reishi repeats impassively, his expression never wavering. “There is nothing that any clansman or former king can do to bring it back.” There are too many, he realizes. In this state, his clansmen can’t possibly hold their own against everyone. “Now, if you leave our headquarters peacefully, we will release you all without consequence –” _

_ “Like hell we’ll leave!” _

_ He has barely a split second to comprehend the words before the Strain rushes toward him, a blur of glowing power. _

_ A month ago, he would have seen the attack coming before the Strain ever spoke, would have gauged the response that would best quell the mob’s anger. Now, unable to move a muscle, he falls. _

_ He falls, and even as searing pain splits through his head, there’s an instant of clarity, a promise of relief, or maybe relief from a promise – _

What do you want?

_ – and he thinks, oh, so this was – _

* * *

He never finishes the thought.

With a jolt, he wakes to white-hot heat beating at his back and sweat rolling down his neck. Shaking off the exhaustion that clings to his skin, he recognizes the bleached, color-drained world around him almost immediately.

It’s a typical park with no real significance, much like countless others in the city. But he remembers this place, the summer almost four years ago when a heat wave rolled across the city and smothered its inhabitants into weary sluggishness; remembers his first vibrant image of Suoh smoking on a park bench under a blazing, cloudless sky.

It was a dispassionate curiosity that caused him to seek Suoh out and propose a deal then, and none of the same practicality that drove him away. Now, as he locks eyes with the man sitting on the same bench, he feels nothing but unease.

They can’t keep doing this.

“Munakata.” Suoh’s voice is steady and light, though it belies the unusual somberness in his stare. He knows what happened; of course he does.

_ Stop,  _ Reishi wants to say. But his voice still fails him, and he still moves numbly toward Suoh as though his body is beyond his control.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he murmurs, staring down at the man who shattered his peace in a whirlwind of crimson chaos, who wrested every last unwilling sliver of his heart away and left nothing behind.

Suoh half-smiles, some of the seriousness fading from his eyes. “Well, sit down,” he drawls, and Reishi does.

“I suppose I’m still alive.”

“Yeah. The scenery isn’t nearly as nice when you’re dead.” He tosses Reishi a sidelong glance and says, too casually, “You could’ve died, though. The great Munakata Reishi, offed by a Strain’s kick to the head.”

“Oh? And what are you saying?” Maybe if Suoh says it first –

“Nothing.”

“Really.”

“Yeah,” Suoh mutters. “I have no right to judge anything you’ve done, remember?”

It’s a way out, back into the familiar territory of petty banter – but it’s too late now, and with difficulty, Reishi swallows back the easy retort.

Instead, he pulls away to watch Suoh, silent and glass-sharp and shimmering scarlet, expression shuttered and contemplative. In the stifling heat of the park where they first met, the shadows seem to fall differently over Suoh’s features, and Reishi hovers on the brink of –  _ something _ , of –

( _ I thought I found it already, but I guess I’m – _ )

– and suddenly, with terrible, painful clarity, he understands.

“Suoh, am I keeping you here?” he says quietly.

Though he tries to hide it, the momentary surprise on Suoh’s face tells Reishi everything. “Thought you were convinced I wasn’t real.”

Reishi forces out a laugh. “Of course you’re not real. You’re dead, and that won’t change. But –” His breath catches, and he rushes on, not meeting Suoh’s eyes. “I saw you the day the Slate was destroyed. You were helping Kushina Anna… harness her power.”

“Yeah.”

“But you were happy, weren’t you? I saw it. You’d found – whatever you were waiting for.” He breathes out, finally finding his voice. “So you shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, I am,” Suoh murmurs, and Reishi’s eyes narrow.

“That doesn’t answer – oh, forget it. This was because of me. All of it – the Strain attack, because I wasn’t paying enough attention. I would have let Scepter 4 go because I thought they could only exist with the Slate system.” For a moment, his voice shakes, sending a jolt through Suoh’s shoulders. “I lectured you about responsibility and forgot my own – but you, you came when I was trying to forget everything –”

“You shouldn’t have.” Suoh shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Not like everything’s reset because the Slate’s gone.”

_ You could have said that in the first place.  _ As it is, it’s taken a Strain uprising for him to realize that. Reishi smiles bitterly. “I wonder when you became more knowledgeable about this than me.”

“Well, death makes you see differently.”

“So does constantly meeting a ghost.”

_ What do you want now, _ Suoh asked him what seems like a lifetime ago, and he might not know the answer perfectly even now; but he knows, at least, what he has to do next.

_ You did try to help me, in the end. It’s unfortunate that it was you of all people. _

“I… understand what you meant now.”

Suoh stares at him, but without surprise, only the strange, weary softness that Reishi has now come to identify as regret. “So?”

There’s really only one answer, Reishi knows.

For that, it isn’t any easier to say.

“You have to leave,” he whispers, and Suoh kisses him.

Eyes falling helplessly closed, Reishi leans into the kiss, the humidity of the summer air fading around him into Suoh’s heat. Suoh blazes against his skin with the desperation of a man drowning, a rough hand coming up to grasp Reishi’s jaw.

He tastes of ash and smoke and the burning embers of terrible disastrous need, and Reishi jolts, flushing – because no, that’s why – that’s why they can’t –

(Because Suoh died a year ago, and it doesn’t matter what this is now because it has to end.)

Abruptly, Reishi wrenches himself away – too soon, he thinks dizzily, and not soon enough.

“That’s it,” he gasps. “That’s all there’s going to –”

“I know. That’s why I did it.” His voice almost petulant, Suoh grimaces at the ground and scratches the back of his neck. “Wasn’t planning to stay long, anyhow. So I’ll leave next time.”

Reishi nods mutely, his willpower crumbling at the small, unvoiced request. “And, Suoh… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“Ah?” That gets Suoh to look up at him, face twisting in displeased confusion. “You shouldn’t be. I wanted it, and you couldn’t’ve stopped me.”

Somehow, it’s Suoh’s most off-guard, real expression that Reishi can remember, and his heart aches with a sad fondness.

“Yes, I know that well enough.”

_ But I had to say it once, before you left. _

This is where he decided to meet Suoh, and left with a terrifying anticipation that thrummed beneath his skin like chaos, like desire.

This is where he meets Suoh as a cold inevitability refocuses the buzzing dream-world around him, and finally decides to leave.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. The sun glares down upon them, and the ghost of Suoh Mikoto seems to flicker in front of Reishi’s eyes for a moment, the scarlet bleeding out of him like watercolor. “Goodbye.”

* * *

**_3._ **

_ “Hey,” a voice snaps as Reishi approaches his office. He looks over, eyebrows lifting in surprise. _

_ “Yata Misaki-kun of Homra.” _

_ “Yeah, obviously.” _

_ “Your king has left, and the negotiations are over. Why have you remained?” _

_ “I wanna ask you something.” Yata scowls. “Are you guys only here to catch Strains? Is that the only reason you’re together at all? ‘Cause Saruhiko nearly died for you guys –” _

_ “Our organization was established to manage Strains, yes,” Reishi replies coolly. “But our bonds are enforced due to our common cause of justice. Thus, our adapting to the wake of the Slate’s end will hardly – ah, Fushimi-kun.” _

_ He turns to Fushimi, who has an oddly perplexed look on his face. “Captain. Misaki.” _

_ “Saruhiko,” Yata says, jerking in surprise. “I didn’t… Sorry.” _

_ “Don’t just mention me to make a point,” Fushimi mutters, but the complaint is half-hearted. “Anyway, we’re at work. If you want to talk with the Captain…” _

_ All unfinished sentences and careful treading and finding their places, and that’s how it’s been ever since Yata saved Fushimi from execution as a traitor to Jungle. Knowing that Yata has likely forgotten what he came to talk about, Reishi gives them a pleasant smile. _

_ “Oh, I was just answering a question. You two talk all you want.” _

_ He walks past them and into the office, carrying in the pocket of his uniform the last of Anna’s color. _

* * *

“You know, I really shouldn’t be clinging onto a ghost,” Reishi says absentmindedly, swirling a glass of wine in his hand for the umpteenth time.

(Suoh really did bring him to a bar after all, albeit the most obvious one. It doesn’t feel like Bar Homra, though, with only the two of them and not even Kusanagi Izumo serving them drinks from behind the bar.)

Suoh turns to him, cocking an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Two words and too many implications in them, so Reishi shrugs, files them away for later. His response is offhanded, almost an afterthought, and they leave his mouth almost as easily as they entered his head. “Might be. Though, if you’d lived and lost your powers, what would you have done?”

A pause. “Can’t say.”

“Huh.” Reishi sighs, wondering if it’s disinterest or real hesitance. “You wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.”

“Mm.” Suoh reaches for a cigarette, his glass lying untouched on the table, and lights it with a flick of his hand. He takes a slow drag before speaking again, his eyes trained on the smoke drifting into the air. “So if you had the Slate –”

He doesn’t need to hear the end of that sentence. “That’s certainly pointless to think about.”

“Well, you asked me.”

“I was curious. You aren’t. You’re hardly subtle about what you want to ask me, Suoh.” Reishi downs the rest of the wine and reaches toward the bottle for a refill. “I’ve tried to move on, but your presence is hardly helping me.”

“Nah, that wasn’t really what I asked. And you could still make me leave.” Suoh shrugs lazily, though he sounds almost sincere. “But you won’t.”

The conversation’s moving in sluggish circles and it’s ridiculous. Anywhere else but here, Reishi would have changed the subject, or stopped speaking entirely; but with the wine and the dream and the surreal inconsequentiality of it all, Reishi only hesitates for a moment before he moves to shut Suoh up.

(It’s terrifyingly easy to let his guard down, to drop all the careful barriers he’s crafted for years; and he relishes the irony, a little bit, that he’s the one who doesn’t care anymore.)

“Because I want you to stay,” he says, soft and wry, and yanks the cigarette out of Suoh’s mouth to pull him into a languid kiss.

Suoh’s mouth parts easily under Reishi’s, even as he flinches with surprise, and the taste of cigarette smoke settles bitter on Reishi’s tongue. It combines with the alcohol, making Reishi even more light-headed; he feels his lips quirk up into a dizzy smile against Suoh’s as he tips his head to the side for better access.

When Reishi finally moves away, he feels vaguely satisfied at the dazed look on Suoh’s face.

“Munakata,” Suoh begins haltingly, reluctantly, and stops there.

But his eyes betray him nonetheless, flashing with desire, or maybe just a temptation, on the verge of –

(It won’t change anything.)

“Never mind,” he mutters.

Reishi smirks, lifting the stolen cigarette to his mouth, and Suoh’s gaze darkens further. “Don’t think too much about it.”

Suoh turns away, and they fall silent, Reishi musing over Suoh’s expression and toying with the stem of his glass. Finally, he breaks the silence mostly on a whim.

“How is Totsuka Tatara? Can you speak to him?”

Suoh slants him a sideways glance, an implicit concession in his eyes. “Used to,” he says, sounding unusually subdued. “He was there when I came, but he left when Anna became king. Looked pretty happy. I think he was just waiting for Homra to come together again.”

“And you? What are you waiting for?”

“Dunno, really.” Suoh’s eyes soften. “I thought I found it already, but I guess I’m still here, huh?”

“I suppose so.”  _ Sounds lonely, watching from above. _ Somehow, the thought is morbidly amusing, that Suoh might have trapped himself by seeking freedom from the mortal world, and Reishi laughs aloud. The alcohol – or perhaps the kiss’s aftermath, if he wants to be sentimental – has long since gotten to his head, the world a pleasant unfocused buzz; he wonders vaguely if he can really go on like this, unguardedly opening his heart to a ghost in his dreams.

Well, he’ll think about it when he wakes up.

Outside, the sky trickles past sunset into evening and casts a glow on Bar Homra. Reishi closes his eyes and raises the glass to his lips, savoring the taste of smoke and wine.

* * *

**_2._ **

_ “You had no right,” the woman hisses, trembling in her shackles. “You – you damned kings, you had no right. Even if it was to save those stupid people.” _

_ “You had no right to murder someone.” _

_ Her face twists in terror, and she stares at Reishi with desperation in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even know who he was. I was angry, but – my powers are leaving. I can feel it. Please, give them back to me. They were all I had. They’re the only thing –” _

_ “The Slate is gone,” he says, looking away. “No one can bring it back.” _

_ Her entire body slumps like a puppet with its strings cut. She says nothing, her eyes dark and dead. _

_ “Is this all you wanted to say to me? In that case, I’ll be leaving now.” _

_ He makes it halfway to the entrance before she speaks once more. _

_ “Aren’t you angry?” she whispers. “You were a king. I’ve heard – everyone else’s powers are still fading, but the kings lost them right away. Don’t you –” _

_ Reishi walks out of the cell, and the doors close behind him. He never hears what she says next. _

* * *

For a week, Reishi’s dreams are hazy and fleeting, fever-spun nonsense twisting out of memory’s reach. Then, without warning, they aren’t, and he finds himself in the Scepter 4 prison, standing in front of a cell door he knows all too well.

Vaguely, he remembers dust and desolation pooling in the open air, a nearly tangible wave of frustration that fanned his fury and drowned everything else. Now, the cold emptiness in the air is… different. Calming, maybe, or simply less draining.

He should leave. It’s an obvious choice with an obvious answer: walk away now, and avoid Suoh Mikoto.

Instead, he steps forward.

The doors disengage and open with a clang, as they had before. As he walks in, the only sound in the air the click of his boots on the ground, he almost expects to see Suoh sleeping with his back to him once more.

Instead, Suoh’s awake and sitting upright. Reishi stops directly in front of him, their eyes meet, and for a moment, uncertain silence hovers in the air.

“What an improvement in scenery,” Reishi says dryly. Suoh’s lips twist up into a half-smirk. But he seems calmer, more passive, as though restrained in some invisible way by the prison cell.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll bring you to a bar next time.”

“You assume there is a next time.”

“Yeah.” Suoh leans back, breaks their gaze like the nothing it was. “Gonna tell me to leave now?”

“Well, it hardly changes anything, does it?” Reishi moves, then, ignoring the flicker in Suoh’s eyes as he sits down beside him. “It isn’t as if you’ll endanger anyone like this.”

“You don’t have to justify everything you do with the greater good, y’know. You could just tell me to get the hell out, or  _ – _ ”

“You are the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.”

Suoh pauses. “Ah.”

“You never took an ounce of responsibility for anything.” Only a dream, he knows, and unfiltered thoughts  _ – _ or perhaps last words  _ – _ spill carelessly through his lips. Suoh’s expression doesn’t waver once, unflinchingly holding the stare as he speaks. “You were chosen, but you did nothing to fulfill your role. Tearing up the city at every whim, letting your clansmen run amok  _ – _ you knew it, and you weren’t willing to change, but you still called yourself king. You still remained king. And  _ – _ ” He stops short, chooses his words. “And you died for a petty vengeance, without a single thought to the people you left behind, to whom you owed everything  _ – _ ”

“Y’think I owe you anything, then?” It’s not particularly accusing, but there’s a gleam in those eyes that’s more challenge than curiosity. Reishi’s lip curls in icy contempt.

“I never meant myself, but you owed me from the moment you chose me as your executioner.”

Suoh laughs softly, the sound echoing strange and breathless through the cell. “Guess so. You done now?”

“Suoh, it would take me an eternity to list all the ways in which you infuriate me.” The exchange is starting to unsettle Reishi; it feels like a conversation they’d be having in normal circumstances, perhaps even one they could have had before. Something it isn’t supposed to be.

As if to prove his point, Suoh accepts the words with an easy shrug. “Fine. Then, how are you?”

“How am –” Reishi gapes at him, disbelieving. “Oh, everything’s going wonderfully. Suoh, what exactly do you think this is?”

“A conversation?”

“Again, Suoh, I have nothing to say to you.”

Suoh grins. “You sure had a lot to say to me just now.” Completely unaffected by Reishi’s glare, he continues, “Anyway, you think the Strain’s got a point?”

Reishi’s eyes narrow. “About?”

“About the powers. You always did think you had to follow some great duty. In the end, you did the same thing as me, right? So you’d go to your grave with your damned powers.”

Reishi stares at him in disbelief, torn between his previous resignation and a desire to punch the man in the face. “You of all people have no right to pass judgment on anything I’ve done.”

“Well, you did say I’m only a dream,” Suoh says, too amused for Reishi’s liking. “Just treat me as your conscience, I guess.”

“My conscience would hardly look like you,” he snaps, though he knows it very well might. But Suoh just flashes him a soft, knowing grin, and the breath catches in his throat.

Still dangerous, then, and still a trap he knows well enough not to touch, but it isn’t as if he has anything to lose this time.

Suoh’s right, for once. This isn’t worth any of the grief or restraint it was in life; for all that he looks like the real thing, this Suoh Mikoto may as well be his conscience.

“You’re not going to leave, are you,” Reishi murmurs. It isn’t a question.

“Nah. Unless you keep telling me to. Or unless you throw that marble away.”

He never does.

* * *

**_1._ **

_ By the Prime Minister’s decree, Scepter 4 will disband and its members join the general police force in a month. _

_ This, of course, doesn’t surprise him. He knows that Scepter 4’s original function will be irrelevant once everyone’s powers fade away; he knows, too, that the Prime Minister fears for the safety of his position after the Jungle fiasco. _

_ What surprises him is how much sense it makes to him, and how little he minds. After all, Scepter 4 was granted to a king, and he is a king no longer. _

_ That day, Anna presses her last marble into his palm, her now-pale eyes soft and sad; for good luck, she tells him, and refuses to take it back. _

* * *

The first time Suoh appears, he trails a wasteland in his wake.

As Reishi watches in disbelief, scorched browns and reds bleed across the ground, and a heat of new destruction shatters the silence in the air. Gradually, the ruins of a washed-out city materialize all around them.

(And for a moment, with Suoh Mikoto standing in front of him, all blazing colors and sharp angles in a haze of crimson-dulled destruction, he almost forgets –)

“Ah, shit, thought I got rid of this one already.”

Suoh’s mutter snaps him out of his trance.

_ Oh. A nightmare. _

A nightmare, and of course it had to be Suoh. The dim thought takes shape and settles in his mind like a death sentence, a curse as heavy as the Sword of Damocles that once swung above his head. Faced with the last person he wants to see, frustration churns restlessly in him with nothing to temper it.

“Suoh,” he forces out.

“Hey.” Suoh grins as he turns to face Reishi, amber eyes gleaming with exhilaration; there’s a wild, terrifyingly genuine happiness in his gaze, and Reishi can’t imagine why. A warm breeze stirs in the scene of desolation, as though kindled by the elation in Suoh’s eyes. “Glad to see me?”

“No.”

“Figures. Pretty terrible sight, huh, all of this? Sorry about that.”

But Suoh’s expression doesn’t change for a moment. He laughs, inexplicably delighted, and Reishi’s anger rises in him as his control slips. As if in tandem, the wind picks up throughout the wasteland and cards through tangled scarlet hair, momentarily sweeping it into waves, and – no, he doesn’t need this now, not after everything he’s tried to forget –

“Get out,” he hisses, turning on Suoh. “I have nothing to say to you, Suoh, even in a dream, so –”

“Ah.” At that, the frenzied joy in Suoh’s grin finally flickers out; Reishi can’t even bring himself to feel gratified for it. “What if it’s not a dream?”

“Ridiculous.” His eyes narrow, and he rushes on before he can think about the alternative. “And even if you were his – ghost, or anything of that sort, I don’t need you here. Why not haunt Kushina Anna, or someone who actually desires your presence?”

“Well, she’s probably doing fine without me,” Suoh says carelessly, the implication in his words casual and terrible.

“I’m doing fine too, and hardly better with you here.” Despite himself, Reishi’s voice breaks into dark rage, fueled by the stifling heat and the energy shifting in the air. “Tell me, Suoh, did you care about your clan at all? You didn't regret a thing, did you? Did it occur to you that you might have the slightest responsibility –”

“Munakata –”

_ You’ve said enough, _ whispers a voice that will haunt him for an eternity, and how dare he, how – “If you dare tell me to –”

“What do you want now?”

Reishi stops, reining in his fury, and turns away.

He doesn’t understand it, not the question or the strangely soft look on Suoh’s face, and perhaps he never will. But it doesn’t matter.

“I want you to leave.” It comes out smooth, settles between them with the finality of a blade’s edge.

Suoh sighs. “Can’t blame you,” he murmurs. “Fine.” And with that, the dream dissipates, and Reishi wakes up cold with the bitter taste of ash on his tongue.

* * *

**_0._ **

That’s unlike you, Munakata.

… I know, right?

_ Not a dream, for he hasn't dreamt since he became king. A hallucination, perhaps, or maybe it’s truly a ghost. _

_ Anyway, it hardly matters now. He’ll find out soon. _

_ He laughs and continues walking, the weight of the terrible irony settling on his shoulders. _

* * *

The hallucination returns soon enough, enshrouded in the glow of Kushina Anna’s wings as she sets the stage for the Slate’s destruction. Through a haze of shock and exhaustion, Reishi can only watch as Suoh glances over with a grin.

(It’s the kind of expression he used to wear right before a fight, and ridiculously, Reishi’s heart still skips a beat; though who can blame him now, when he’s on the verge of shattering?)

After a moment, Suoh turns away and looks forward. “Burn them,” he says lowly, echoing Anna’s cry, glowing with flame and something like triumph –

_ You must be happy,  _ Reishi thinks, and the resentment never comes.

(It figures that it had to be about this in the end; about them, and all the things they never wanted.)

Alone and exposed, with the Sword of Damocles crumbling above his head and years of controlled power on the verge of overflow, Reishi smiles.


End file.
